1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imprint apparatus which transfers fine concavities and convexities on a fine structure to a surface of an object to which a pattern is to be transferred.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, photolithography techniques are commonly used as techniques which form fine patterns necessary for semiconductor devices or the like. However, as patterns become finer, it becomes difficult to cope with such a refinement by the photolithography techniques if a required process size becomes as small as a wavelength or so of light used in exposure. Accordingly, electron beam drawing devices which are a kind of charged particle beam devices becomes popular instead of the photolithography techniques. Unlike a one-shot exposure technique in a pattern formation using a light source of i-rays, excimer lasers, and the like, a pattern formation using electron beams employs a technique of directly drawing a mask pattern. Accordingly, the larger the number of patterns to be drawn is, the more the exposure (drawing) time increases, and it takes a time to finish a pattern. Therefore, as the integration degree of semiconductor integrated circuits increases, a time necessary for forming a pattern increases, so that the throughput is likely to be degraded. Hence, advanced well to overcome this problem is development of one-shot pattern exposure technique in which various kinds of masks are combined together and irradiated with electron beams at once, and electron beams of a complex shape corresponding to the combination of the masks are formed in order to speed up the electron beam drawing devices. However, as the pattern becomes finer, the electron beam drawing devices become large in size, a highly-precise position control for a mask becomes necessary, and a device cost increases. Conversely, there are known nano-imprinting techniques which can form a highly-precise pattern at low cost. According to the nano-imprinting techniques, a stamper having concavities and convexities (surface shapes) corresponding to concavities and convexities of a pattern to be formed is pressed against an object to which the pattern is to be transferred and which is acquired by forming a resin layer on a predetermined substrate, and a fine pattern can be formed on the resin layer of the transfer object. The nano-imprinting techniques are applied to formation of patterns of recording bits in a large-capacity recording medium, and formation of patterns of a semiconductor integrated circuit.
JP 2000-194142 A discloses a method of transferring an imprint pattern to a quartz substrate.